Principle for Bible Reading

Jesus’s prayer for you is clear: Today, you need God to provide for you, forgive you, and deliver you. Every single day, you need God to move in these three ways. In this lab, John Piper unfolds these simple, but critical prayers.

Outline

Introduction/Prayer (00:00–00:57)

Our Daily Bread (00:57–01:44)

Jesus tells us to pray for our basic needs. We do not need more and more things.

Simplicity and necessity (“daily bread”) are the prayer because there is so much temptation in wealth and excess. Accumulation is not evil, but it very easily can become so.

Jesus’s prayer for “daily bread” stands for all our needs. It’s an admission that we are human and need provision from God to survive.

Forgive Us Our Debts (01:44–06:00)

Why can Jesus compare our forgiving of others with our being forgiving? Isn’t that works righteousness? (Matthew 6:12). No, Jesus is not saying we are earning forgiveness, but asking that we would be forgiven in a way that correlates with the way we forgive each other.

Those who do not forgive others are foolish, unwise, and will be miserable.

If our heart says it is a good, beautiful, desirable thing to forgive others, it will call down forgiveness from God for our own sin.

Lead us Not Into Temptation (06:00–08:52)

Jesus states this prayer negatively and positively. Negatively: “Lead us not into temptation. . . .” Positively: “. . . deliver us from evil.” (Matthew 6:13)

All pleasure in this life is a test from God laced with temptation from Satan. Will we idolize this pleasure or thank God for it and consider him as more valuable than this pleasure?

In the same way, all pain in this life is a test from God laced with temptation from Satan. Will we trust God in his infinite wisdom, power, and love or will we curse him?

Therefore, this prayer is asking God to keep every test from ensnaring us in Satan’s temptations. God, deliver us from this pain or pleasure becoming destructive to our faith in you.

Prayer (08:52–09:56)

Study Questions

In Matthew 6:11, why is Jesus’s prayer for “daily bread”? Why “bread”? What was he trying to communicate? And why “daily”?

Explain the “as” in the middle of Matthew 6:12. In what way could a holy God possibly forgive us as we sinners forgive others?

How does it work when God “delivers us from evil” (Matthew 6:13)? What would it look like in your life if God answered that prayer today? Try to be specific.

Piper: “God, do not allow the pain or pleasure in my life to steal or destroy my faith and joy in you.”

‘The Lord’s Prayer’ Series

This lab is part of a series through Jesus’s prayer in Matthew 6:9–13. If we are going to learn to be alone with God in prayer, we need to slow down and mine everything we can from this short lesson Jesus gave his disciples. John Piper reveals several key insights he has seen in these verses over the years. Visit ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ series page to see all three labs in this series.